Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/14

6 replied, "He cannot take more pleasure in spending, than I did in getting it." These men could see the faults of each other, but not their own; those they flung into the bag behind; non videmus id manticæ quod in tergo est. I may perhaps be censured for my free opinions by those carping Momuses whom authors worship, as the Indians do the devil, for fear. They will endeavour to give my reputation as many wounds, as the man in the almanack; but I value it not; and perhaps like flies, they may buzz so often about the candle, till they burn their wings. They must pardon me, if I venture to give them this advice, not to rail at what they cannot understand: it does but discover that self-tormenting passion of envy, than which the greatest tyrant never invented a more cruel torment:

I must be so bold to tell my criticks and witlings, that they can no more judge of this, than a man that is born blind, can have any true idea of colours. I have always observed, that your empty vessels sound loudest: I value their lashes as little as the sea did those of Xerxes, when he whipped it. The utmost favour a man can expect from them is, that which Polyphemus promised Ulysses, that he would devour him the last: they think to subdue a writer, as Cæsar did his enemy, with a Veni, vidi, vici. I confess I value the opinion of the judicious few, a Rymer, a Dennis, or a Wk; but for the rest, to give my judgment at once, I think the long dispute among the philosophers about a vacuum, may be determined in the affirmative, that it